Opinion

WA parliament 'chooses tyres before the car' as local government inquiry called

Last week our state parliament displayed its best and worst tendencies.

Its best was the establishment of a Legislative Council Select Committee on the motion of the Hon Simon O’Brien. Supported by all members except the government, this committee will take a year to examine and determine if the current Local Government Act is fit for purpose.

A 'robust'inquiry has been called to establish whether the current Local Government Act is fit for purpose.

O’Brien proposed a “robust inquiry” to be “as broad and powerful as we can make it” and while he should be congratulated for that, this critical step should have been the starting point for the current review of the act.

Which brings us on to the worst tendencies of parliament and that is the unopposed passing of further amendments to the current 24-year old, 472-page Local Government Act.

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We now have a Parliamentary Committee, a review committee, departmental officers and a proposed green bill that will all influence local government.

But we still don’t know where all this is headed, making this serial amending a bit like choosing the tyres for a car before you decide which car you are going to buy.

The minister said mandatory training would be introduced “to ensure that council members have the necessary understanding to carry out their role, universal training for candidates and council members is being introduced".

These most recent amendments ignore the important questions of unchecked CEO and administrative power and clearly tell elected members of local governments that they are the problem that needs solving.

Oddly, there are no penalties if councillors don’t take part in training. The public does not know what the training will involve or how success or failure will be measured and there will be no examinations or reporting of results.

When former Liberal minister Tony Simpson sought to introduce similar training, the WA Local Government Association (WALGA) President Lynne Craigie said on 1 Jan 16: “We stopped short of endorsing compulsory training in the belief that it was undemocratic to place educational prerequisites on a person’s right to represent their community unless that was to be the standard for all spheres of government. Furthermore, there is the risk you could discourage individuals from standing for election at a time when we’re trying to increase diversity on councils.

“The truth is that whilst you can mandate training, you can’t mandate learning. Simplistic tactics like mandating processes don’t address underlying issues and can ultimately cause more problems than they solve.”

WALGA was correct back then, however that very principled position has softened and they have now submitted expressions of interest to be paid to be the body delivering what they were opposed to.

But more disturbingly, the process of calling for expressions of interest to deliver this ongoing training was not a public one. It took place before the parliament had legislated for it and it is noteworthy that WALGA and the State Government have an official partnership agreement that requires the state to give them at least 12 weeks notice of legislative changes.

This means that even if the process had been an open and public one, WALGA would have been given advance notice of it. One can only wonder what the State Auditor General would say if any local government acted in this way with public money.

However, now the law has changed and training of every councillor in WA will become mandatory, the ongoing cost of local government just rose by an estimated annual cost of somewhere between $3 and $5 million.

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That is only a guesstimate based on a rough cost of training and the number of councillors, but a rudimentary and objective application of the principles of openness, accountability and good governance dictate that the outcomes, cost and process should have all been made public before any decisions to legislate and fund it were made.

Local government is important, affects every person and business in the state and it is chockfull of good people who volunteer their time in the interests of their communities and I reckon they all deserve to know where all this is heading.

It is time for the government to end the uncertainty, release its green bill and take notice of the WALGA advice that “simplistic tactics like mandating processes don’t address underlying issues and can ultimately cause more problems than they solve".

Descended from a family of 1890’s Nullarbor pioneers, Larry Graham has spent his adult life living and working in every mainland state in the nation. He worked in a variety of jobs over this time, ranging from milkman to Member of Parliament with the Australian Labor Party before moving to Toodyay seven years ago. The combination of public life, thirty years in outback Australia and six years in the army right around the country has given Larry experiences, access and exposures that very few people ever get the opportunity to have.